OK Omens

The Best Restaurants, Bars, and Cafes in Portland’s Hawthorne District | Eater Portland

"OK Omens is one of the best places to drink wine in the city, thanks to award-winning sommelier Brent Braun’s fun, voice-y by-the-glass list. “Tastes like eating an almond croissant in the middle of a peach swamp,” Braun writes, describing a Hungarian Furmint. Riesling lovers, this is your spot, with nearly a full page of listings to choose from, including many bottles over a decade old. But the food is no afterthought; after all, OK Omens originally grew as an offshoot of Castagna, the now-closed, trailblazing fine dining restaurant next door that opened in 1999. Chef Joseph Papas recently took over the kitchen, with a menu that might include mussels in escabeche with roasted chicken fat, kelp-cured raw trout with grilled toast, barbecue mackerel, and steak Diane. Don’t miss dollar oyster happy hour from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday." - Katherine Chew Hamilton